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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25708402">Monsters</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrecariousSauce/pseuds/PrecariousSauce'>PrecariousSauce</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>More things Between Heaven and Earth [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hellsing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Horror, Japanese Mythology &amp; Folklore, Origin Story, Psalms 144, Worldbuilding, Yôkai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:22:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25708402</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrecariousSauce/pseuds/PrecariousSauce</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a monster in Shingo. </p><p>It comes down from the mountains, the mist hiding all but it's heavy footfalls and the sound of scraping metal. It arrives in the night, and in the morning a home found is ransacked, a family found slaughtered or not found at all. The adults pretend it isn't there. They pretend it's a bear, or the yakuza, or a serial killer. They pretend that <i>this sort of thing</i> doesn't happen here. They pretend that God will save them if they sit around and do nothing.</p><p>Yumie Takagi is eight years old, and she <i>knows</i> there's a monster in Shingo. She knows where it's been, and she knows where it's going.</p><p>But that knowledge comes moments too late.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>More things Between Heaven and Earth [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544479</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Monsters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Disclaimer:</b> Due to the town being so small it's hard to find conclusive information on exactly how Christian the village of Shingo is, but considering it both has the Tomb of Christ AND a traditional Shinto shrine, I'm fudging it and saying that it sits in that odd Japanese gray area where we casually ignore the whole 'no Gods before me' thing because 'Kami don't REALLY count'. Basically, don't take my word for it re: the Christian-ness of Shingo and it's inhabitants. Just like Hellsing itself takes liberties with how the Protestants and the Catholics get on, we're taking creative liberties as well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is a monster in Shingo.</p><p>Every night, when the mist rolls down from the mountains, so does the monster. It walks with a slow, heavy gait, the thumping of it’s massive feet accompanied by the sound of metal scraping sluggishly across cracked pavement. Everyone waits, breath and crosses all held tightly, until the footfalls pass their home.</p><p>In the morning, a home is found empty. Ransacked. Shoji broken inward and tatami stained red. Precious, expensive heirlooms still on their shelves and beloved stuffed toys lying halfway between the home and the street at the end of a set of tiny footprints.</p><p>The precious few police do their due diligence, asking friends and neighbors if they heard or saw anything, and get the same answer from all the adults.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>They saw and heard absolutely nothing.</p><p>Everyone in Shingo was asleep in their beds, blind and deaf to the world.</p><p>The police give them shallow bows and shuffle away. The case is quietly closed, and a new one is opened the next morning when it happens all over again.</p><p>Eight year old Yumie Takagi passes by the taped-off homes of classmates as she walks to school and finds another desk in her classroom empty.</p><p>She and her friends hide under the slide and whisper about the monster. Takeo, Akane, and Koji all say they built up their courage for days before finally taking a quick glance out their window, catching a glimpse of the monster’s silhouette in the mist. Takeo says it was tall and thin, with claws so long they scraped the ground. Akane insists it had eight legs and red eyes that glowed in the moonlight. Koji remarks that he didn’t get a good look, but he <em>did </em>see a tail that thrashed like a snake.</p><p>Yumie passes by the offices and sees the teachers huddled together, hushed voices bouncing around in a circle. Their students are going missing. Their <em>friends </em>are going missing. They’re finding blood at the scenes. The houses are destroyed, but nothing’s been taken. Is it yakuza? A serial killer? Something else?</p><p>No, this is Shingo. This is Aomori. This is Japan. Things like <em>that </em>don’t happen here. People like <em>that </em>don’t live here. It’s impossible. The police have closed the cases. Nobody’s seen anything. Nobody’s heard anything. We’re being ridiculous. This is a good Christian community, one of few, God wouldn’t let something like this happen to us. If we pray, God will sort it out. They clutch their crosses and the circle dissolves.</p><p>Life goes on.</p><p>Yumie’s family eats their dinner in the low, flickering light of a dying bulb. They’re eating late. They don’t eat until father comes home, and tonight he got home well after nine o’clock. Her little brother, only five and up well past his bedtime, shovels rice lethargically into his mouth. Her mother chastises him for not touching his green peppers. Her father’s eyes stay firmly on his food. Yumie pushes her rice around the bowl, her eyes flickering around the table, her lips tightly pursed.</p><p>The words come from her mouth like air from a popped balloon; "When is someone gonna do something about the monster?"</p><p>Her mother’s eyes snap up to hers in a glare and she draws her brother close; "There is no monster, Yumie. Don’t say such things at the table, you’ll frighten your brother."</p><p>"There <em>is,</em>" Yumie insists, leaning halfway across the table, "People are going missing! There’s <em>blood! </em>My friends have seen it, Takeo Akane and Koji all saw–!"</p><p>"Their minds were playing tricks on them," her mother cuts in, "It’s easy to think you’re seeing shapes in the mist, especially if you’re up past your bedtime when you’re looking."</p><p>Yumie can feel her cheeks heating up; "That’s not–! They’re not stupid, <em>I’m not stupid!</em>"</p><p>"I didn’t <em>say</em> you were stupid, Yumie, you’re overreacting," her mother deflects, "You’re getting upset, you’re making your brother upset, please just eat your dinner and stop being disruptive."</p><p>"It’s just a bear," her father suddenly says, finally looking up from his food to pin her down with a hard stare, "It’s attacking people without stealing anything, coming down from the mountains, it has all the signs of bear attacks. The police will come up with countermeasures, and if they don’t, then God will sort it out."</p><p>It’s not a bear. Yumie <em>knows </em>it’s not a bear. Bears don’t carry big metal things that scrape on the ground. Bears are big, but not so big that you can hear their footsteps from miles away. It’s <em>not a bear.</em></p><p>But instead of trying to fight her father on that, she instead shouts, "But doesn’t God help those who help themselves?! Wouldn’t he think we’re lazy and stupid just waiting for him to solve everything instead of–?!"</p><p>Her father slams his fist on the table, knocking over Yumie’s rice. Her mother clutches her brother as tightly to her side as she can, covering his eyes and ears. Her father glares at her from beneath a heavy brow, his eyes glinting dangerously in the flickering light.</p><p>"Do <em>not </em>lecture <em>me </em>about the Lord, Girl," he growls, "This is your last warning. Either you stop all this 'monster' talk and eat your dinner <em>quietly, </em>or you go to bed without it."</p><p>Yumie scowls at him and makes her choice by standing up and sprinting out of the dining room. She doesn’t go to her room. Instead, she scrambles to a tiny room her mother had been using as closet to keep all the Good Linen for Special Occasions that never seemed to come. Yumie snaps the door shut behind her and gropes around in the dim light for her flashlight. She finds it where she’d left it, wedged in-between a stack of folded silk sheets. She turns it on and uses it to search through the linens until she finds where she hid her notebook.</p><p>The notebook is big and heavy with thin lines, nothing like the composition books she has for school. The clerk at the store had said it was made for older kids with lots of high school homework, but Yumie had saved up half the money for it and pilfered the rest from her mother’s purse, so he couldn’t <em>not </em>sell it to her. Yumie has filled the pages with newspaper clippings clumsily glued to the paper, loose transcripts of conversations overheard between adults, gossip from friends, and any other piece of information she has. If she had her own room Yumie would have pasted this all on the walls and connected it with red string like she sees in detective shows, but this will have to do for now.</p><p>Tucked into one of the folder pages is a map of Shingo. Yumie unfolds it, spreading it out across the closet floor. She’s circled and connected every house the monster hit with red, cherry-scented marker. First, Yumie flips back to where she left off and scribbles down the address of the last house the monster hit. She writes down that the Shimura family had three kids, one of which was in her class. She writes, hand trembling, that there was blood on the front stairs, but Noa had told her she heard there were no bodies.</p><p>After writing everything down, Yumie goes back to the map. She circles the Shimura house and connects it to the house the monster hit the night before last. Yumie studies the map, chewing on her lower lip. She’s not stupid, no matter what her mother thinks. She learned patterns <em>ages </em>ago in preschool. And now that the monster has ten attacks to it’s name, Yumie can see one. Starting at the edge of town, it’s been going up the main road, switching sides with every attack. It’s skipping houses, leaving two or three houses between it’s victims on either side of the street.</p><p>So tonight, it’s going to go across the street from the Shimura house, and two houses down from the house he hit the night before…</p><p>Yumie’s eyes stop on her house.</p><p>There is crash, loud as thunder.</p><p>The lights outside the closet go out.</p><p>Yumie hears the sound of tearing paper and splintering wood. She hears her mother scream, her brother scream, her <em>father</em>– who has <em>never </em>raised his voice, not once– <em>screaming. </em>There’s another crash that shakes the house, and a sound like a watermelon breaking. Feet slip and slide along the tatami. Yumie turns off her flashlight, covers her mouth, and holds her breath. Heavy, rhythmic thumps follow the footsteps until they’re inches away from her hiding place. Yumie hears something large and heavy crash <em>through </em>the floor, the impact nearly knocking her over. Yumie bites her tongue to keep from shrieking. After a moment of silence, there’s the sound of something wet being pulled away from something metallic, and the unmistakable sound of someone chewing on something that <em>crunches.</em></p><p>Faint footsteps, sprinting down the hallway in the other direction. Yumie would regret until the day she died that the only thought on her mind in that moment was <em>Please go that way, please please please go that way.</em></p><p>And the heavy footfalls answer her prayers, turning and following whoever remained of her family away from her hiding place. Yumie waits, silent and still as if she’s already dead, until the heavy footfalls are as faint and muffled as something so massive can be. She slides the door open, centimeters at a time, making a crack <em>just</em> wide enough for a little girl to sneak through. The hall is drenched in blue moonlight, turning the blood staining the tatami black. Yumie gets only a glimpse at the mangled arm of a grown man before she forces herself to turn away and creep up the hall.</p><p>She feels her soles sticking to the tatami. She must have stepped in the blood. She <em>can’t </em>leave footprints. Yumie scrunches down, as low as she can, and carefully works her socks off. She steps past them, leaving them at the end of a short trail of bloody prints. She inspects the bottom of her bare feet, but she can’t tell how much blood seeped through in this light. She hears a not-faint-enough <em>crash. </em>She doesn’t have time to know for sure. Yumie pushes up into a crouch and continues shuffling up the hall. She needs to make it to her parents’ room. She’s almost there. Just a few more feet up the hall, around a corner, and it will be right there.</p><p>Yumie gets to the corner when she hears something that sounds, for a moment, like a strong gust of wind blowing through. But then she hears it again, and <em>again, </em>this time longer and deeper.</p><p>It’s not wind.</p><p>It’s the sound of a great nose sniffing the air.</p><p>Yumie draws up to a standing position, flattens herself against the wall, and sidles around the corner. She makes it to the very edge of her parents’ door, then slinks along it to the center. With the utmost care and precision she wedges her fingers between the two sliding doors. She pulls it towards herself. The sound of the door sliding barely an inch over in it’s wooden track sounds like a gunshot. Yumie’s breath catches in her throat. She freezes.</p><p>A second goes by, then two, three, four, five…</p><p>The footsteps still shake the house. But this far away, Yumie can’t tell where they’re going.</p><p>Yumie times her movements. Every time the ground shakes, she slides the door open another inch. Once it’s <em>just </em>wide enough for her to squeeze through, Yumie wriggles through the crack in the doors. Even with the monster’s footsteps rattling the foundation, not a piece of furniture is out of place in her parents’ room. The sword mounted on the far wall still sits proud and stoic in the moonlight streaming through the window. It’s been in her family since before they’d converted and come to Shingo, but she’s never seen it come out of that sheathe. Before tonight, she’d always wanted to.</p><p>Yumie scuttles over to it and has to stand on her tiptoes to reach. Only her fingertips brush the underside of the sword, and even then barely. It’s only as she’s considering what she can use to give herself a boost that another massive footstep shakes the ground, jostling the sword. That combined with Yumie’s fingers pushing at it from below send the sword leaping off it’s mount. Yumie’s reflexes aren’t quick enough to keep it from clattering loudly to the ground, sliding an inch out of it’s sheathe.</p><p>Yumie has the sword, half as tall as she is, cradled in her arms when she hears a voice croon, "Where are you, little one?"</p><p>Yumie’s heart stops.</p><p>That voice is not her father. It’s not her mother or her little brother. It’s the voice of a growling tiger, a rumbling thunderstorm, iron scraping against asphalt. This is the voice of a monster.</p><p>The footsteps are growing louder, <em>closer; </em>"There’s no use hiding. I can smell your fear, little one. I can smell the blood on your feet. Both make you smell absolutely <em>delicious.</em>"</p><p>Yumie’s eyes bounce around the room. She has to get out. She can’t go back the way she came. Back that way is a narrow hallway, and the monster will catch her like it caught her family in such tight quarters. She has to go out the window. Yumie drops the sword on the tatami and runs to a chest of drawers stacked like stairs. The antique wood is heavy enough, but these drawers are full of her mothers’ possessions. There’s no way Yumie can pick it up. She braces all her weight against the drawers and pushes, grinding the tatami beneath their weight.</p><p>Once the drawers are beneath the window, Yumie doubles back to retrieve the katana and clambers up the chest. With the sword tucked tightly under her armpit Yumie grabs the bottom of the window and pulls up.</p><p>It doesn’t move.</p><p>Yumie pulls again, and again, rattling the window in it’s frame.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>It’s <em>locked.</em></p><p>Yumie bites down a whine of terror. The footsteps are growing closer, the monster stopping every few steps to sniff the air. She doesn’t have <em>time </em>to look for the key, but she can’t give herself away yet, but her mother and father will be <em>so angry </em>if she breaks the window–</p><p>She remembers the mangled arm in the black blood.</p><p>Father, at least, won’t care.</p><p>Yumie bites her lip, takes hold of the sword by it’s sheathe, and points the hilt at the window. She shuts her eyes and, as hard as she can, jabs the hilt into the window.</p><p>If all the little sounds of her footsteps, opening doors, and moving chests over tatami were gunshots, the window breaking sounds like a bomb going off.</p><p>Yumie awkwardly maneuvers herself out the window as the monster rumbles out a purr of a laugh; "<em>There </em>you are. Did you hope hiding beneath Mother and Father’s sheets would stave off the bad dreams? I am no nightmare, little one. I am real, and I am <em>coming for you.</em>"</p><p>Yumie doesn’t care that the glass is cutting her hands, her calves, her feet. She’s tumbling out through the window and landing in a heap, the sword clutched tight to her chest like a stuffed toy. She rolls up to her knees. The window dropped her in the two-foot-wide space between their house and the neighbors. She can see the mist rolling along the main road, almost glowing in the light of the full moon. Yumie sprints for it, breath coming in high wheezes. She’s fingertips away from the street when she hears the wall come crashing down, mere yards behind her. She keeps running, as fast as she can, and then even faster.</p><p>Yumie makes it out onto the main road, the monster’s thudding footsteps following behind. She pivots on her heel and sprints up the street, not sure where she’s going but <em>away. </em>The sound of her tiny feet slapping on the pavement is drowned out by the screech of metal dragging along the road. Yumie chances a glance over her shoulder and catches sight of her pursuer, painted in the moonlight’s harsh shadows, charging after her through the mist.</p><p>She has seen this creature before. She has seen it in statues, paintings, in books and on television. She has seen it with it’s horns blunted, it’s fangs shaved down, it’s weapon little more than a metal bat. This creature, built like the bear her father claimed it was but twice as broad and thrice as tall, has horns sharp enough to piece straight through a man. It’s crooked fangs are meant to tear through flesh, and are stained with blood to prove it. It’s maul, larger than the creature’s arm, could crush Yumie flat in one strike and shred her body with it's spikes. It wears a tiger’s pelt with fangs and claws preserved. It’s eyes glow gold as if lit from within.</p><p>The oni’s mouth falls open in a grin, revealing the long black hair caught in it’s teeth; "Run, run, run, as fast as you can! You can’t escape me, little one! Your legs are too weak, your lungs too small! You will die of exhaustion before you throw me off your trail!"</p><p>Yumie lets out the shriek she’s been holding in all night. She races up the road, zigging and zagging to try and throw the oni off her trail, but it never wavers. The giant demon relentlessly dogs her steps, effortlessly keeping pace. It could overtake her whenever it wanted. It’s legs are twice as long as hers. They’re as long as <em>her. </em>It’s <em>playing </em>with her, like a cat with a caught mouse.</p><p>Yumie’s legs carry her out of town, and once the concrete barrier separating wood from road falls away Yumie dives into the forest. She can barely see a thing in the dense wood, the canopy blocking the moon. She trips over roots and branches snap against her face. Behind her she hears the forest bending and breaking beneath the oni as it would a bulldozer. Yumie weaves through the trees, and no matter how many times she trips and falls and scrambles back to her feet, she keeps a hold of the sword. She can’t lose it. Not now. Not her last line of defense, for all the good it will do.</p><p>Yumie’s legs feel like they’re melting and her lungs like they’re about to burst when she breaks through the trees into a wide open clearing. The open space is enclosed by a formality of a wooden fence with gaps big enough for Yumie to crawl right through. Yumie all but leaps through the fence and tumbles to a halt between two mounds, each topped with a tall white cross. Yumie uses the sword like a cane to push herself to her feet. Instead of running, she gawks up at the crosses.</p><p>The Tomb of Christ. She’s at the Tomb of Christ. She hadn’t even meant to come here, but here she is. Did the Lord guide her here? This has to be a sign. This <em>has to be. </em>There’s something, something in her gut, like a spark igniting. Something is burning there, hot and angry and righteous. She can’t run. She won’t. Not anymore. Not when the Lord is watching her. Not when the monster who killed her family has to answer for it's sins.</p><p>The fence behind her explodes into splinters. Yumie whirls around to see the oni stepping through the fence, broken perfectly where his maul came down in the middle. With shaking hands, Yumie unsheathes the sword. Despite it’s age, it shines like silver.</p><p>The oni throws it’s head back, cackling, "You think that will protect you, little one?! You think your <em>God </em>will give you strength?!"</p><p>"D-don’t come any closer," Yumie shouts, struggling to point the tip of the sword at the oni, "You’re in a holy place! I-if you–!"</p><p>The oni takes a massive step forward, closing half the distance between it and Yumie in one stride; "If I <em>what, </em>little one? What do you fear I’ll do to you? Do you fear I’ll crush you in one strike, like I did your father? Do you fear I’ll rip the head from your shoulders and crack it open with my teeth, like I did your mother? Or do you fear I’ll swallow you whole, and you’ll join your brother in my stomach?"</p><p>Tears are burning at Yumie’s eyes, hot as the fire burning in her gut; "I’ll kill you for what you did!"</p><p>The oni’s grin twists and it’s eyes crinkle at the corners; "Go ahead, little one. I dare you to try."</p><p>The fire in Yumie’s gut explodes out of her mouth in a shrill war cry. She lifts the sword above her head, a half-remembered imitation of a kendo form, and rushes the monster.</p><p>Something whistles through the night air. A blade, a foot long and sharp as truth, buries itself three inches in the ground between Yumie and the oni. Both whip their gaze to the source.</p><p>A silhouette, nearly as massive as the oni, darkens the stairs leading from the tomb to the road. In the shadow of the trees and the swirling night mist, all Yumie can pick out are broad shoulders and the light glinting off a pair of round lenses.</p><p>The silhouette speaks before it moves in a man’s voice, his Japanese rendered rough both by the nature of his voice and a foreign accent; "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to battle."</p><p>He takes one large step forward into the light. The foreign man is dressed like a priest, but he is <em>nothing </em>like any priest Yumie has ever seen before. She’s never seen a priest with a scar cutting a wedge into their square jaw. She’s never seen a priest with eyes that seem to smolder with a green fire, like a wildfire is burning behind them. She’s never seen a priest with a blade in each hand, staring down a monster with a straight-toothed grin that reaches his ears.</p><p>He continues quoting scripture with every step he takes closer to the oni; "My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me. Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him! Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away!"</p><p>The oni shifts, partially facing the foreign priest, and growls, "Walk away, Shepherd. This child may have been promised to your God, but she <em>belongs </em>to <em>us. </em>She is no sheep of yours."</p><p>The priest doesn’t slow, not by even a fraction; "Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke! Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them! <em>Amen!</em>"</p><p>The oni opens it’s mouth. The priest’s arm whips out like a striking cobra and the blade in his hand flies true, piercing through the creature’s throat. The creature screams, a gout of blood bursting from it’s fanged maw. Yumie staggers backward, sword dropping to her side, and the foreign priest rushes in. For such a large man he moves with surprising speed and grace, dodging around a wide swing of the oni’s maul and lobbing two more blades to bury themselves between it’s ribs. The oni manages to flip the maul into a reverse grip and swing for the priest again. He tucks and rolls out of the way, coming up right in front of Yumie.</p><p>He looks over his shoulder and down at her; "Keep your distance, lass. Don’t want you gettin’ nicked now, do we?"</p><p>Yumie’s not sure even half of those words are standard Japanese, but she understands the sentiment. She goes stumbling back until she hits the fence, then wriggles beneath it to put it between her and the melee. Four blades each come sliding down the sleeves of the priest’s coat and into his waiting hands. He throws them at the oni and they fly like missiles of holy light in the full moon. The oni is able to block two, but six strike their mark, piercing it’s tough hide and forcing another bloody scream from the massive creature.</p><p>The fight is like a dance where only one member knows the steps. The foreign priest runs circles around the oni, consistently keeping out of it’s reach and throwing blade after blade from seemingly nowhere, hitting his target with pinpoint accuracy every time. Despite the cramped quarters and his size advantage the oni just can’t catch up to the priest. His size and brute strength are no match for the priest’s command of the battlefield and never-ending supply of ammunition.</p><p>As more and more blades find their home in the oni’s body he starts to slow, his swings of his maul going wider and wider. A waterfall of blood is turning his tiger pelt a deep black in the blue moonlight. The light in his eyes is flickering like the flame of a dying candle. The priest burns brighter for every bit of ground he gains, laughing loud and long for every scream loosed from the oni’s throat. His eyes are wide enough to catch the moon, his grin even wider. Every lucky scratch the oni manages to land through an errant swipe of his claws or a spike on his maul closes the instant after it opens.</p><p>Yumie has never seen an avenging angel, but now she cannot imagine one looking like anything but this priest.</p><p>The priest throws a pair of blades into the oni’s thighs, forcing the creature to it’s knees. The moment it catches itself on it’s maul, the priest is before it, sliding two more blades against each other to kick up sparks. Even on it’s knees, the oni is nearly eye to eye with the priest.</p><p>The oni chokes out, "Mercy, please–!"</p><p>"The Lord’s mercy is for men smart enough to fear him," the priest snarls, "There is no mercy for heathens or monsters. And you are <em>both.</em>"</p><p>The priest’s blades flash in the moonlight, slicing through the oni’s thick neck like hot knives through butter.</p><p>There is no dramatic pause. The oni’s head goes sliding off the stump of it’s neck and the body crumples, limp and heavy like a sack of rocks. The priest’s blades disappear up his sleeves and he glances over his shoulder, eyes landing on Yumie. The wildfire in them dims down to the hot logs of a dying campfire as he looks her over. As he turns to face her fully, Yumie’s eyes go wide. Not at the blood covering his clothes, but at how his face softens into a warm, sad smile.</p><p>He crosses the clearing in a few long strides. Yumie wriggles back through the fence and he kneels down, still having to stoop even then to be at eye level with her. His eyes rest on the sword in her hands and he sighs through his nose, the sound weary and weighted.</p><p>Yumie’s words outpace her brain; "Are you an angel? Did God send you to save me?"</p><p>He shuts his eyes and shakes his head; "The Lord did send me, lass, but I’m simply a man. Were I an angel, I could’ve come for you sooner, and you never would have needed to pick up a blade in your own defense."</p><p>He opens his eyes and smooths some sweat-matted hair out of hers; "Your family, are they…?"</p><p>Yumie’s throat is too tight for words to come through. She shakes her head. All traces of the avenging angel disappear from his face. Now, all that’s there is a sadness so deep Yumie feels like she could drown in it.</p><p>He wipes at her cheeks with his big thumbs, erasing the tear tracks; "They’re with the Lord now, lass. That may not be much comfort to you now, but in time, it will be."</p><p>Yumie’s hand tightens on the hilt of her sword; "What’s going to happen to me?"</p><p>That smile, soft and honest, comes wandering back onto his face; "Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get you all sorted, that’s a promise."</p><p>For some reason, that promise is all it takes to send the last of the adrenaline rushing out of Yumie’s system. She slumps abruptly forward, her face landing on the priest’s broad shoulder. He catches her easily with one arm, tucking it under her legs to cradle her like her father could when she was smaller. Yumie loops her arms around his neck on instinct. With his other hand he gently coaxes the sword from her grip, and once it’s loose it disappears up his sleeve as swiftly as any of his own blades. He stands, lifting Yumie easily, and starts towards the stairs.</p><p>Yumie falls asleep with her cheek pressed into the bloodstained coat of Father Alexander Anderson.</p>
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